Shubb

The Shubb Capo company began in California in 1974, when Dave Coontz and I collaborated to design and produce our fifth string capo for banjo. Before that, I worked as a professional 5-string banjo player and teacher, and Dave was an auto mechanic and a banjo student of mine. One night at his lesson, I was talking about my dissatisfaction with existing methods of capoing the fifth string. I described an idea that I had for a fifth string capo that operated on a lever principle, so that it would provide sufficient pressure for a good tone, and ranted about how I couldn't get anyone in the music products trade interested in making one. Finally, he said "if nobody else will make you one, I will."